Verbalizing Your Grief

Grief isn’t the easiest thing to process. It doesn’t always follow, in order (or sometimes at all), the set “rules.” It’s as if the grief doesn’t realize there is a path to follow! While I’ve found that each birth parent processes their grief differently and at a different pace, I’ve found one similarity through generations of varying grief.

Verbalizing that grief is a key component to moving through the process.

In various forms throughout the generations, birth parents have been verbalizing their grief and their grieving processes. Less audibly during the Baby Scoop Era and with more resonance in the past ten years, birth parents are talking about what it is like to lose a child to adoption, how that has an effect on their life and what they think needs to be done with the system.

Some birth parents, obviously, are more verbal than others. I fall into this category (obviously!) as would many other birth parent bloggers. While some may seem more reserved in how they speak on certain topics, the simple fact that they are actively blogging and writing through their emotions shows the verbalization of that grief. By putting fingers to keys, the new technological version of pen to paper, they are getting the emotions out which is one way of dealing with them as opposed to sitting and silently stewing over the years.

While we see a lot of birth mothers involved in open adoptions speaking up, we’re also seeing, more and more, birth parents from the closed adoption era joining the chorus of voices and demanding to be heard. Some of this may be attributed to the fact that they were forced to keep silent about anything revolving around their child, grief included, by family members and “all-knowing” agencies. As they begin to find an outlet for their grief and as they begin to actively verbalize that grief, we’re also seeing things like anger, depression and a strong desire to foster change within the system. These things are to be accepted and should be viewed as positives, not negatives. Again, the actual “letting out” of these things is often necessary for healing to occur!

Some times the verbalization of grief is met with resistance from other parties for various reasons. Other triad members may not want to hear how birth parents have experienced life-long or continued grief, sadness and anger. Family members who thought that they were helping the birth parent act in the best interest of all involved may be forced to deal with their own emotions in light of the verbalized grief. Guilt may be brought to the surface. Society and those untouched by adoption are being forced to think about different issues in new ways by birth parents who refuse to keep their mouths shut.

However, the important parts for both birth parents and other parties to remember is that the verbalization of grief is necessary for healing and that it doesn’t negate others grief. Birth parents have been silenced for far too long. Sometimes the general public gets overwhelmed with the sudden and strong presence of today’s vocal birth family members. In the end, it’s not truly about what others think about how birth parents are speaking and more about the fact that these members of the triad are finally getting to speak their peace and truly begin to heal.

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For more on processing grief, read:

1. Why Won’t You Listen to Me?

2. Quantitative Pain: No Grief Gold Medal.

3. Core Issues in Adoption: Grief.

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Photo Credit.

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